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The sea; so wild, so unknowable, so vast, so mysterious, so wet, so… paintable. And few people painted it as voraciously as the artists of 19th century France. Georges Seurat – the neo-impressionist pioneer of pointillism – was prime among them, and the Courtauld Gallery has just announced that it will be doing a whole show dedicated to his sea paintings next year.
The exhibition – ‘Seurat and the Sea’ – will be the first exhibition of the French painter’s work in the UK for 30 years. Seurat died young, at just 31, but in his short life still managed to paint dozens of seascapes. This show will bring together around 23 paintings, oil sketches and drawings made during five summers he spent on the northern coast of France, between 1885 and 1890.
They act as a glistening counterbalance to his city paintings, with Seurat himself saying he made them ‘to wash his eyes of the days spent in the studio [in Paris] and to translate in the most faithful manner the bright clarity, in all its nuances’.
2026 feels like a long way away, and a lot can happen in a year, but you know what they say: que Seurat, Seurat.
‘Seurat and the Sea’ is at the Courtauld Gallery, Feb 25 2026-May 17. Tickets go on sale later this year. More details here.
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